Umbrella Blood
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AU] The death of a loved one closes some doors and opens others. But the doors themselves aren't so easy to find, or pass through once they're found...
1. 01-05

**A/N:** The title came from the idea of it raining blood in a metaphorical sense, except not being quite so bad as the umbrella acts as a shelter against the rain/blood. Think of it as acid rain; you're fine as long as you've got shelter but shelter means you're restricted to a certain area. And you might not have the convenience of being under shelter when it suddenly starts to rain.

Prompts are from livejournal (again). This as isaviel's prompt table 30-B. Five prompts per chapter (again) so 6 chapters in total.

Also posted on lj, but individual prompts. So if you'd rather read them one at a time, then journal link is on my profile. Just click on the Umbrella Blood tag if it's not staring at you. I've finished writing, but it's not fully posted on either place sadly. I'm being a bit slow with that. :D

* * *

**_Umbrella Blood_**

* * *

**01. Lively**

Corpses weren't meant to look alive, but somehow he had never imagined one looking so _dead_. In fact, he'd never imagined seeing one up close, and it was frightening.

Kouichi had imagined death as something angelic, the way his mother had described it. The end of a long journey of trials and troubles and the beginning to a world free from pain and suffering and enough so that no human being could ever be of need or want again. That description had given him an image of ethereal beauty: a glowing face and a body with all tension evaporated with the last of life. Maybe with the smell of musk or fresh flowers.

But that…_that_…was different. That was cold and stiff and slightly discoloured and –

– his _mother!_

He screamed and jerked forward as someone touched him – placed a hand on his shoulder.

The hand immediately retracted, but it changed matters little…if at all. But the possibility of subtlety could not be ignored; many things happened where people missed them, and beyond that were many more things humans were incapable of grasping, of understanding.

Emotions, feelings…they were such things. Perhaps the soul experiencing them were best equipped to understanding them, but even they fell short on the ladder of full enlightenment.

He didn't understand the chaos that was his mind and heart. He heard murmurs around him, streaked against a black backdrop and slowly colouring it an imperfectly vicious white. Words stood out: his name, his mother's, that word…

But nothing was as cold, as stabbing, as the body he was half slumped over and still clutching all while the mix of smell and touch was making his head reel.

Was he standing up before that? He wasn't sure; in any case, he was sure his legs could not support his body at that moment. His mind was having trouble grasping the situation; a small part of him still hung on to the possibility that his interpretation was incorrect. Perhaps because it seemed unreal, not fitting into the definition he had grown up knowing…

But his heart was in his mouth. He was either going to throw up or faint and he knew, he _knew_, his mother would never allow such a scene to be played out in jest. A single mother she may be, but the people in their community had long since learnt not to anger her when her only son was involved in the matter.

And that meant –

He was suddenly pulled away from the body and onto his feet. His head spun. The white cloth he had involuntarily grabbed for slithered and fell, exposing a little more of her uncovered frame.

'Come away,' someone said softly in his ear. 'This is no place for y – hey!'

The last exclamation was too loud, piercing like a shrill alarm through his skull. Bile was rushing up his throat; some unplaceable stench was blocking his nose but he somehow found himself incapable of acting on instinct and doubling over to regurgitate whatever contents his stomach possessed. Instead, the sensation of drowning in dark waters consumed him, the white cloth floating away from him as the lifeline that both attracted and repulsed him was swallowed up by the same darkness that consumed him.

* * *

**02. Remorseful**

He woke to the scent of herbs and burning wood. The curtains were drawn over the windows, dampening the young autumn sun that attempted to steal through the cracks. Soft voices melted into the air around: soft and gentle and yet still containing a hint of something grated and raw.

He turned his face, burrowing into the soft pillow beneath his head. He didn't want to listen to them. After all, what could they say to him? Sympathies that helped no-one, despite the best of intentions. Remorse that was not truly heartfelt – for losing a family member was very different from losing a friend or co-worker, and he knew it well. After all, his mother wasn't the first in his family to die.

He closed his eyes again, trying to shut out the world. But he couldn't stop his ears; even muffled by layers of cloth they took in the shallow murmurs from the hallway, like a netting in which he floundered about with seawater, unable to escape…or sleep.

* * *

**03. Dismiss**

He awoke once more, but to the sound of fragmented voices. Part of him wanted to stay in the humidity of his blankets, but his mind had, in its slumber, lost the ability to return to that incomprehensible state.

And he wished he could, because the truth was now unavoidable. His mother was gone – dead – and he was alone.

He had known, to an extent, that it would happen in the near future. They both had; the terminal cancer had reached its final stages and mother and child could afford to do nothing else but wait for the end. But they both avoided it; in a way, they were both too young. Tomoko had always talked about her son growing up and finding a nice young girl to marry and live happily with. She had talked about babysitting the grandkids, like her mother had did with Kouichi while she worked. She talked about sitting in a rocking chair at a ripe old age, knitting scarves and sweaters and nice warm mittens for the family.

But then the news came, and it came like a wave, crashing through everything. To Kouichi – who was old enough to know the world was not black and white but still too young to fully understand the grey – it wasn't nearly enough time to come to grips with the idea. It still seemed as though Tomoko would wake up tomorrow, albeit weakly, and they would eat soup together and work through puzzles or trade stories – for it seemed there was a wealth they had never gotten the opportunity to exchange.

Or was, rather, because his heart was a block of lead that, like the cancer that had taken his mother, could not be removed.

And they had never, never, talked about what would happen next.

So there was really no reason to move after all, because he had no destination.

* * *

**04. Heavy**

Someone checked up on him and he closed his eyes, though they seemed to realise he was awake. Still, they asked he was hungry, took his silence as a "no" and told him everything would be okay.

He felt he should appreciate the sentiment, but part of him was still rather numb.

The blankets really felt heavy, and after she was gone he pushed them away, then forced himself to his feet to open the window. The room was simply that suffocating that it forced him to his feet.

He wished it hadn't though, because the first blast of cool air caused him to tremble. Still, he stayed in his new place, leaning against the glass and becoming slowly frozen by the cold caressing wind. At least he could breathe there after all.

He could hear the whispers from the window. His mother's friends – or co-workers; in either case, he didn't know them very well – talking outside by their cars. Maybe they felt uncomfortable staying indoors for too long. Maybe they too were being suffocating by the heavy air that followed death.

He heard his name a few times…and once, his father's. But that was quickly devoured by the whistle of the wind and taken to new paths. Homes, people he didn't know, orphanages…

The image of his father, blurry and unrecognisable, burned behind his eyes. He was young when his parents divorced: too young to remember the face. But he remembered being piggy-backed along, high enough sometimes to reach the cherry blossom leaves. He remembered a figure of strength.

* * *

**05. Forward**

That gave him an idea. A childish idea, through and through, but at least it was a course of action.

Naturally, there had been times where he hated his father, for leaving him and his mother. But afterwards he would think: his mother didn't hate him, nor did his grandmother. And the few memories he had showed his father as a good person, for if he remembered something as trivial as being lifted to reach the cherry blossoms he would also recall if his father had ever acted in a less-than-appealing manner. And those memories were easier to remember, or so he had learnt and so he had read. But he didn't.

And surely his father could fix things if he went to him. Surely he couldn't turn away from a son that had lost his mother, no matter where had been over the past years. Surely he still cared.

He remembered his mother telling him once that she still sometimes kept in contact with his father. They were few and far between, she explained, because his work had him moving so often and post was so unreliable. Occasionally, she laughed, he would post the forwarding address and she would receive it only after he had moved again. But they talked about him, she said, and every year without fail he would send a little money and a card for his birthday.

It seemed like the only connection to his father, so without fail Kouichi too would ask his mother send a little something for father's day.

But surely the most recent address was still around somewhere. And if he could find it, and follow…

It seemed so very easy, and the thought of comfort and security at the end was enough to push him away from his support by the windowsill.


	2. 06-10

_**Umbrella Blood**_

* * *

**06. Prowl**

He didn't want to step into his mother's bedroom. He didn't. Not then anyway. It was too early. Too fresh. He knew – just knew – he would be looking for her, like when he had a nightmare as a child and crawled into her bed, and she would embrace him and stroke the fear away –

But he needed to find that address, and that was what made him open the door.

Perfume from scented candles seemed ten times stronger in the dim and unaired room, the scent rushing in to overwhelm him as soon as he loosened the barriers to the outside world. It was unbearable for a moment, and tears pricked at his vision, but the resolve he had set for himself pushed him forward once more. Small, quiet steps padding on the ragged carpet soundlessly until knees hit the floor with a soft thump.

And then his hands were around the box, removing the lid and digging blindly, fruitlessly, into its dreary depths.

* * *

**07. Cut**

He hissed in surprise at the sharp pain, and removed his hands to stare at the little line of red that lined the side of one finger.

Such a small wound…but its pain had been so _sharp_. And the colour so bright.

He blinked owlishly at the blossoming line before returning to his digging, this time with a more focused mind and eye. The thin line of red on his finger glared from the edge of his peripheral vision, blocked him off from other distractions. All that could steal his mind were the numerous letters and other titbits in his hands: a few photos of his father, the last with a woman he didn't recognise, and of him. Except he somehow looked different.

But Kouichi wasn't looking for photos, and he simply grabbed one of the recent ones on a whim and put the rest aside. There were some cards as well, mostly addressed to him, but a couple for his mother too, and Koichi did spend a little more rime staring at his mother's name printed so neatly, before putting that aside as well.

Letters were interposed between, and Koichi organised them into date order before staring at the address on the most recent one.

He took the whole letter, torn envelope and all, with him.

* * *

**08. Compromise **

He didn't have a lot he could call his own; most things simply belonged to the house, and it was impossible to decide their owned now. Some things, mostly clothes and sparse jewellery but a few other sentimental items as well, were his mothers. A few second hand books brought from his allowance, the presents from his late grandmother that hadn't been broken, grown out of or eaten, and clothes.

In the end, he took just a jacket, what remained from his allowance, and the framed photo of all three of them along with what he'd already set aside. He was just going to see someone after all, and put everything right.

Or he was in a walkabout dream and would wake up when he got to his destination. That didn't seem like too bad an idea when it stuck. Even if he wasn't naïve enough to think his mother could open her eyes and set the world right again.

Maybe he was idolising a father he'd never met instead, but at that moment there was no alternative in his mind. The desire for a parent, _his _parent, was too strong.

* * *

**09. Impulse**

It was hours later, on the bullet train, when cold sunk into his bones.

He'd essentially run away from home – from a home that no longer belonged to him, without his mother there. Who knew how others would see that? Would they think, with nobody to argue otherwise, that his mother was a bad guardian? Would they send him away somewhere? To an orphanage as they'd been saying? Or add him as another statistic lost in the streets?

He clutched his misshapen bag, feeling the soft worn jacket wrapped around the hard picture frame. Even with the dual buffer, the sharp edges dug into his palms. He left the picture hidden, simply holding it tight and trembling without a mother to embrace him.

A few other passengers watched him, but no-one reached out. Some saw the sadness in his eyes and frame and silently spelt pity. Others saw the dishevelled clothes and assumed him a runaway starting over, fare paid or no. Few did the honest thing, spending the last of their money before dwelling in whatever place they had reached; others took the free and less admirable road to rebirth.

Not that it mattered, because the homeless in any sense were frowned upon, and it didn't really matter that Koichi had a father he was looking for, or no real place to run away from, because he was alone. He drew his knees to his chest and clutched his frayed backpack even closer and trembled a little more under the watchful gaze of the world.

* * *

**10. Hush**

It was night when the bullet train arrived, but while his hometown would have been a quiet shore by this time, Tokyo station was still alive with lights and sound. It hurt his already tender head, and he stumbled a good many times before finding the platform he needed to be on to catch the local train. Unfortunately, it was one of the smaller lines, finishing early and starting late. But he wasn't the only person waiting; there were a few sleepy eyes that has gotten off the night express, and a few whose dirty and ruffled clothes marked them without homes.

The night guard frowned at the lot of them, but said nothing. Music blared from a loudspeaker, and one of the homeless men was trying to beg a few yen off the other customers. He left Koichi alone though, and he was able to shut his stinging eyes and try to fall asleep on a bench. He even tried to hope it _would_ all be a bad dream when he awoke, wished upon a shooting star he couldn't see, and finally drifted off with jacket wound around his hands, both of which clutched the framed photo of his grandmother, mother and he.


End file.
